ERKEIEY \ SRARY 1 OF UVERSITY J A MANUAL OF THE MALAY LANGUAGE. FROM KEGAN PAUL <$ CO:S LIST HANDBOOK OF THE MALAY LANGUAGE, for the Use of Tourists and Residents. By Kelly and Walsh. 3s. net. Printed in Roman characters only. It contains an elementary grammar and an English- Malay vocabulary. PRACTICAL MALAY GRAMMAR, with Reading and Translation Exercises. By W. G. Shellabeak. Third Edition. 5s. net. All Malay words are printed in Roman characters. ENGLISH AND MALAY VOCABULARY, for Use in Schools. By A. E. Pringle. Eighth Edition. 2s. net. MALAY - ENGLISH VOCABULARY, containing I Malay wordjfand phrases. By W. G. Shellarkak. (is. net. Printed in Roman characters. ENGLISH-MALAY DICTIONARY, containing 10,000 words. By the same. Ia the press. MALAY -ENGLISH DICTIONARY. By R. J. Wilkinson. 4to. 10s. 3s. Unbound, 2. ; bound, 3, The Malay words are printed in Arabic ana in Roman characters. ENGLISH-MALAY VOCABULARY. By Sir F. A. Swettenham. Tenth Edition. 8vo, cloth. 8s. Gd. net. MALAY-ENGLISH VOCABULARY. By Sir F. A. Swettenham. Eighth Edition. 8vo. 8s. 6d. net. %* Malay words printed both in Arabic and Roman characters. TRAVELLER'S MALAY PRONOUNCING HAND- BOOK. Tenth Edition. 12mo, cloth. 5s. Printed in Roman characters. VOCABULARY OF MALAY MEDICAL TERMS. P. N. 12s. in By Gerrard, B.A. , M.D. net. Printed Roman characters. LONDON : KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH, TRUBNER & CO. LTD. A MANUAL OF THE MALAY LANGUAGE. WITH lln Iittrotructorg Sftetclj of tije Sanskrit (Element in jHalag* BY WILLIAM EDWARD MAXWELL, OF THE INNER TEMPLE, BARRISTER-AT-LAW ; ASSISTANT RESIDENT, PERAK, MALAY PENIN8DLA. TENTH EDITION. LONDON: KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH, TRUBNER & CO. L BROADWAY HOUSE, 08-74 CARTER LANE, E.C. 1914 n'en refuis aulcune de s'usent les rues Je phrases qui emmy ; ceux qui veulent combattre l'usage par la grammaire se mocquent. Montaigne. 11 4 PREFACE. The lansmasre which I have endeavoured to illustrate in the following pages is the Malay of the British Settlements in the Straits of Malacca, some knowledge of which I have had the opportunity of acquiring during sixteen years' ser- vice in Penang, Province Wellesley, Malacca, Singapore, and Perak. Dialectical peculiarities are so abundant in Malay that it is impossible to teach the colloquial language of the people without imparting to the lesson the distinct marks of a particular locality. In parts of India it is said proverbially 1 that in every twelve kos there is a variation in the language, and very much the same might be said of the Malay Peninsula and adjacent islands. The construction of the language and the general body of words remain, of course, the same, but in every state or subdivision of a state there are peculiar words and expressions and variations of accent and pronun- ciation which belong distinctively to it. Words common in one district sound strangely in another, or, it may be, they convey different meanings in the two places. Even words of such constant occurrence as the personal pronouns "I" and "you" vary according to locality. The Kedah accent is easily distinguished from that of Patani, and that again from the speech of Trengganu and Pahang. Certain expressions common in Penang are almost unintelligible in Malacca and Singapore, and vice versd. In Perak it is not difficult to say 1 Beames, Comparative Grammar of the Aryan Languages, p. ioi. VI PREFACE. whether a man comes from the upper or lower readies of the river, by merely noting particular words in his conversation. Even individual villages and districts have their peculiar twang or their tricks of expression not found elsewhere. In Java, Sumatra, and other islands eastward in which Malay is spoken, the pronunciation and character of the language are much influenced by the other languages current there. Malay is only spoken in perfection in places where the natives speak no other tongue. Native pedantry has endeavoured to classify various styles of speaking, as the court style (bahasa dalam), the well-bred style (bahasa bangsawan), the trader's language (bahasa dagang), and the mixed language (bahasa kachau-kan), but all that can be correctly said is, that a limited number of words are used in intercourse with that exclusively royal personages ; persons of good birth and education, in the Eastern Archipelago, as elsewhere, select their expressions more carefully than the lower classes; and that the vocabulary of commerce does not trouble itself with the graces of style and the copious use of Arabic words which commend themselves to native writers. The written language is more stilted and less terse and idiomatic than the colloquial dialect; and even where pure Malay is employed, the influence of Arabic compositions is very marked. Whole sentences, sometimes, though clothed in excellent Malay, are unacknowledged translations of Arabic phrases. This may be verified by any one well acquainted with Malay literary compositions who will look into a really translation of an Arabic work for Lane's trans- good ; instance, lation of the "Thousand and One Nights." The Malay speaks much better than he writes, and has at his command quan- tities of words which never find their way into his litera- ture, and, therefore, but rarely into dictionaries compiled by Europeans. The spelling of Malay words in the native character is hardly yet fixed, though the Perso- Arabic alphabet has been PREFACE. Vll follow but a in use since the thirteenth century ; and those vain shadow who seek to prescribe exact modes of spelling words regarding which even native authorities are not agreed, and of which the pronunciation may vary according to locality. of this there are The experience Crawfurd sufficiently proves ; words in his dictionary which are transliterated in as many as four different ways. Two classes of works in his own language have hitherto been at the service of the English student of Malay grammars, more or less scientifically arranged, and vocabu- laries and books of dialogues, which presuppose some know- ledge of grammatical construction. The Malay Grammar of Marsden is an admirable work, of unquestionable utility to the advanced student; but it con- tains more than the beginner wants to know. Crawfurd's Malay Grammar, too, is hardly a work to put into the hands of a beginner. Mere vocabularies, on the other hand, teach nothing but words and sentences, and throw no light upon forms of construction. It has been my aim to supply a work which will be at once an elementary grammar and a compendium of words and sentences, which will teach the colloquial dialect and rules and for this I have taken yet explain grammatical ; as my model the Hindustani Manual of the late Professor Forbes. The language is not ennobled by having been the speech of men who have made their mark in the world's history. The islands of Indonesia have never startled the Eastern world with an Akbar, or charmed it with a Hafiz or a Chand. Receptivity, not originality, is the characteristic of the Malay races. But the importance of Malay, when the traveller heads eastward from the Bay of Bengal, has been recognised by Europeans since the sixteenth century, when Magellan's Malay interpreter was found to be understood from one end of the Archipelago to the other. It is the strong and growing viii PREFACE. of language of an interesting people, and (in the words a " recent writer on Eastern languages) for Malay, as for Hin- dustani, a magnificent future may be anticipated among the manifest great speech-media of Asia and of the world. They of that capacity for the absorption and assimilation foreign elements which we recognise as making English the greatest vernacular that the world has ever seen." 1 W. E. M. The Residency, Larut, Pebak, Jvly i, 1881 1 Oust, Modern Languages of the East Indies, 15a INTRODUCTION. The interest of Englishmen in the Malay language began with the early ventures of the East India Company in the Far East, in the first years of the seventeenth century. It was the language of commerce everywhere east of the Bay of Bengal, and our earliest adventurers found it spoken at the trading ports which they visited. The Portuguese had pre- ceded them by a century, and the Dutch had been a little earlier in the same field. Our countrymen seem to have been indebted to the latter for their first Malay vocabulary. The minutes of the East India Company record how, on the 2 2d translated January 16 14, "a book of dialogues, heretofore into Latin by the Hollanders, and printed with the Malacca tongue, Mr. Hakluyt having now turned the Latin into Eng- fit factors to lish, and supposed very for the learn, was 1 ordered to be printed before the departure of the ships." At present the use of Malay, as far as Englishmen are concerned, is chiefly confined to the officers of the Colonial Government in the British possessions in the Straits of Ma- lacca and in the native states adjoining them, and to other residents in those parts, and in the Dutch settlements in the East. To these may be added the English communities of Labuan and Sarawak, and merchants, traders, and seamen all over the Eastern Archipelago. The limited extent of our Malay possessions, when they are compared with the magni- 1 Calendar of State Papers, Colonial Series, East Indies, p. 273. 2 MANUAL OF THE MALAY LANGUAGE. ficent islands which make up Netherlands India, excuse us, mo doubt, for the secondary place which we occupy in all researches connected with the language and literature of the Malays. To the Dutch their colonies in the Eastern seas are our Indian is to us and with them the what Empire ; study of Malay, Javanese, Kawi, &c, takes the place of Persian, Hindustani, Tamil, Sanskrit, &c, which occupy our civilians in India.